We've got a Kentuckian in our house, y'all!

Our friend & colleague Casey is a tried & true Southern boy from Tennessee. His long-time friend Reagan, a southern girl from Kentucky, came to visit and has been staying with us for the past week. We knew we'd love Reagan from the first time we saw her huge smile & heard her Southern twang - and we have! It's been fun having her energy & sweet spirit around, but I think we're loving the accent the most. Thanks for bringing a taste of the American south here to Lithuania, Reagan - we're so glad you came!Reagan & Casey

Our whirlwind trip to Poland

Last Friday, February 16th was Lithuania's Independence Day which meant a day off work for us! Last Tuesday we made a very last-minute decision to join a group of friends & drive down to Krakow, Poland. We've been to Poland's capital, Warsaw, a number of times, but haven't yet been to Krakow, which UNICEF has ranked 1 of the 12 greatest historic cities in the world. So, 6 of us & Ieva loaded into a rental van on Thursday afternoon & started the 14-hour drive south. By way of easy reading, I'll list our trip highlights in bullet form:

• Getting stuck in a row of semi trucks who were stopped dead on the highway for 20 miles before the Lithuanian/Polish border, and playing the Lithuanian version of highway chicken as Andrew (and other cars) wove & dodged in & out of the lane of oncoming traffic to pass them all. (apparently, the border stop for semis that day was quite the ordeal, thankfully, it wasn't a problem for us once we got there!)
• While calling our hostel owner from Warsaw, she told us that it would only be a 2-hour drive from there to Krakow...when it reality it took over 4 hours to get there!
  
• Arriving at our hostel at 5am, thankful to FINALLY be there, only to smash one of the van windows on the gate of the extraordinarily narrow driveway as we pulled in
• Taping a bag over the broken window so we could drive the van to the salt mines on Saturday
• Walking down 400 feet of stairs (with Ieva on our backs in the backpack) into the historic salt mines & going on the 3-hour tour throughout them to see floors, walls, chandeliers & statues all carved of salt - amazing!
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• Finding a place that would replace our broken van window in one day
• Taking the city bus on the 2 hour drive to & from Auschwitz, and standing half of the way there & the entire way back (thankfully, one of us was able to sit with Ieva both ways)
• Touring through the work camp at Auschwitz and the death camp at Birkenau to witness the heart-wrenching reality of what is left from that tragic piece of history
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• Staring at this photo of a baby with its mother on their way to Auschwitz and holding the hand of my precious baby girl while thanking God for our safety and for the gift of being together
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• Walking around Krakow's gorgeous old town on Saturday evening

• Having fantastic Indian cuisine in old town
  
• As well as getting a taste of America at Pizza Hut & KFC and then going to IKEA & our favorite European clothing store H&M (which isn't in Lithuania)!
• Smooth sailing (no more bad traffic or accidents) the entire drive home - hallelujah!
  
• Our collective thematic songs (with each person making up a line) to the tune of 'Blessed Assurance' for part of the drive home
• Arriving home at 1:00am on Sunday night & sleeping in our own beds!

Andrew, Kim & Ieva in Krakow's old town

Andrew the beat poet

Tonight at LCC, the Spiritual Life Committee hosted a Valentines Day coffee house. The theme was all about the men serving the ladies and men did the majority of the acts in the program. My darling husband, Andrew...now known to the LCC community as Andrew the beat poet...decided to read a little poetry tonight. Ieva & I were in the audience cheering him on. The first was a story he told in a very solumn tone about a guy looking for a girl that incorporated lyrics from such musical classics as "You're beautiful", "Sexy back", "Don't phunk with my heart", and the infamous Back Street Boys "Bye Bye Bye."He then said that he had an original poem to recite. He said it was entitled: "Poem to the little girl that I love." I grabbed Ieva, snuggled her on my lap, and got a little teary as her Daddy started reading the following poem:

From the first time I met you, all through the days
I think of you often in so many ways.
From the times that I've fed you and listened to some
of the noises that came from your stomach and bum.
I've washed you and changed you; I've put you to bed,
I've tried to figure out what's going on in your head.
You can be confusing, your words or your stance,
I don't always know if there's a mess in your pants.
The crying and screaming and whining and all
just makes me care more for your needs and your soul.
You're cute as can be from your head to your feet,
the gift that you are is so very complete.
I know that you love me, from the smiles and the laughs
that come when I play with your toys in the bath.
You can be real stinky, oh yes this is true.
I even have had to use sprays and perfume!
The room smells much better, but yes we all know
that smells like your stinkers could kill buffalo.
But through all the things that you've changed in my life
I wouldn't want anyone else for a WIFE!

Did that last line catch you off guard?? It certainly did me!!! The room roared with laughter & all heads turned toward me & Ieva as I tried not to let on how much I had been gushing internally about how much my husband loves our daughter just seconds before I was the butt of the joke!!! I have to admit, it was one of Andrew's more creative moments, and a fairly impressive one at that.

We hope you all have a poetic Valentines Day in your part of the world!

She's not a baby anymore!

There have been a number of moments lately where Andrew & I are just going along doing normal day-to-day things when we look up to see what Ieva's doing and are stopped dead in our tracks by what we see in front of us. There's no more baby here, folks. We've got a full-fledged kid in our house.I know this is the most normal thing in the world, but as my dear friend Kim often says in reference to most pieces of the parent-child relationship: "it's the most extraordinary ordinary thing there is." Every baby has grown into a kid and then grown into an adult. It's how we all got to be here. But, man...watching my own baby go through it is the most extraordinary thing I've ever experienced! She's still only 16 months old which sounds pretty baby-like to me...but seeing how tall she is, how long her hair has gotten, how much she is learning (both in English & Lithuanian - wow!) and doing...all show me that she's well on her way to adulthood. In the words of another friend, Rebecca: "you're going to blink & she'll be leaving home." When she first said this about a year ago, I couldn't even concieve it to be true, but now it's starting to feel more & more like the reality it will eventually become. But I won't start mourning her loss yet. We've got a long way to go between now & then and we plan to enjoy every stage of the process!! Calling Grandma (not really...but we pretend that we do!)

So tall!

Red girl

Pretty Ieva

Midnight Super Bowl Party

Yesterday many of you Americans spent the afternoon gathered around a TV cheering for either the Colts or the Bears, or at least enjoying the infamous Super Bowl commercials.

Here in Europe, there is no Super Bowl. As a matter of fact, in this part of the world "football" isn't the sport where guys gear up in pads & helmets & try to run the pigskin into the end zone. Here, football is just as popular, but the players wear much less padding & attempt to kick the ball into the goal, sans helmet. The European football equivilant to Peyton Manning is David Beckham, who Americans would consider a soccer star. You never hear the word soccer here.

But despite the absence of American Football in this part of the world, we've still been able to enjoy Monday night football games on one of our cable channels - the same channel, in fact, that aired the Super Bowl -- LIVE. And because it was live & it started in the late afternoon for most of you back in the US, it didn't begin here in Lithuania until after 1:00AM!! But the late hour didn't detract some of the diehard American Football fans here in Klaipeda (instigated by Andrew). We still hosted a Super Bowl party, complete with the appropriate junk food. There were 9 of us Americans crowded around our TV at 1AM, but by 5:00-something when it was over, only the 5 most committed remained. And since our cable channel couldn't show the commercials - which is the sole reason why I watch the game - I wasn't at all saddened to head to bed around 3:30 after Prince did his half-time show. And yes...we all actually made it to work in time for our 10AM Student Life staff meeting!Chad (RD at LCC) & Jade (Study Abroad student) were two of our crowd watching the Colts stomp the Bears. Notice the time on the clock above Chad's head...2:05AM!!

What's the chance?

So this morning I made french toast for Ieva & I to eat for breakfast (daddy likes to sleep in & skip breakfast), and as I cracked the eggs into the bowl, I couldn't believe what I found. They were all big eggs...but large eggs are relatively normal, right? The first egg had a double yolk. Interesting. You don't see that every day. And then the second egg also had a double yolk. Wow - even more interesting. But then I cracked the 3rd egg & couldn't believe it as a 3rd double yolk feel out of it's shell into my bowl! What are the chances of that happening?? It's craziness, I tell you...So, Ieva & I enjoyed our extra-yolky french toast this morning. Oh, and this was how she entertained herself while I was cooking...she got geared up to go outside! She had her mittens on as well, but had to take them off to get a drink...she cracks me up!

The Joys & Trials of Diversity

Last Saturday, 3 LCC students were on the cover of one of our city's major newspapers. The most exciting part was that they weren't just 3 random Lithuanian students doing something journalists found to be newsworthy...they are 3 of our international students - the 3 who have come some of the furthest distances to be here...and that fact alone was what put them on the front page.

Fabian is from Albania, Nan is from Thailand & Ambrose is from Ghana. All 3 have been in leadership positions during their time at LCC, but all 3 (along with others) have contributed in even greater ways to the community at large merely by living here in Lithuania. We live in a very homogeneous country. Said more bluntly: it's really white here. And sadly, there is quite a segment of Lithuania's population that likes it that way...and isn't too excited about people of different ethnicities moving in. LCC is proud to have one of the largest international populations of any institution in Lithuania - primarily because we believe that the diversity we embrace can be a model to others and help educate them on the great benefits of tolerance, multiculturalism, and ultimately, love.

This, along with many other reasons, is why we love what we do here at LCC. There are definite challenges in facing issues like these, but ultimately, the joy we get from being a part of these students' lives outweighs it all.